Fishing has evolved from being a means for human survival in ancient times to being a competitive and recreational sport in modern times. In the field of sport and recreational fishing, a fishing line, hook and some sort of natural or artificial bait have always been, and still are, the absolutely necessary elements for attempting a successful fishing outing. In the art of sport fishing, a “lure” is an object that is attached to the end of the fishing line and is designed to look and move much like live bait when drawn through the water either by winding retrieval of the line by the angler's reel or by movement of a trolling boat that is pulling the lure behind it. The lure is typically equipped with hooks that set in the fish's mouth when the fish attacks or bites on the lure. The hooks are inherently sharp so as to perform their intended function of penetrating a portion of the fish's mouth and maintaining its attachment to the hook until the fish is netted or landed.
The typical lure, including the basic fishhook, is formed with an eye at its shank end. This eye is used to attach the fishhook or lure to the primary fishing line that is wound upon a reel and fed through rings along the length of a fishing rod blank or pole. Many anglers, however, prefer to attach a lure to the fishing line using a “snell,” which is a shorter length of secondary fishing line that connects the lure to the substantially longer principal fishing line. Doing so saves the angler much time and effort by being able to quickly and easily switch lures when such is desired or required. Without the use of snells, the angler would need to tie the lure to the primary line each time a lure is changed up for another. This is time consuming and particularly difficult to do in conditions that are dark and wet where the lure may not be properly attached, thus risking loss of both the lure and a trophy fish that might be hooked by the lure.
In the experience of this inventor, the use of snells is not without its own set of problems, however. By their very nature, snells can easily become tangled with other snells and other fishing gear that resides in the bottom of the angler's tackle box or in the bottom of a fishing boat. If not properly stowed away, snells can become tangled to the point that they become more or less unusable to the angler. Perhaps even more importantly, tangled masses of snells present a hazard to the angler whose fingers and hands can be pierced by the sharp hooks that are attached to the lures. Accordingly, it is desired in the sport of fishing to devise ways to keep snells from becoming tangled while also allowing them to be easily retrieved for use.
Prior attempts have been made to devise snell holders of various construction. In the experience of this inventor, however, none of the snell holders of the prior art permit the quick and easy removal of an individual snell from the holder. Another shortcoming is the inability to attach a leader to the holder, a leader not having a hooked element to it. Moreover, none of them permit the reliable wrapping of a snell without the risk of snagging of the hooks of a lure during either wrapping or removal of the snell from the holder.